"Will my strength last me? Did not someone say
The way was ever easier all the way?"
H. C. BEECHING.
Youth can nearly always rely upon sleep to build up new strength, new
hope, new courage. If you have got to a stage in your life when sleep
fails you, if night means merely a long tortured pause from the noises
of the world, in which the beating of your heart seems unbearably loud,
then indeed you have reached to the uttermost edge of despair. Joan
slept, heavily and dreamlessly, save that there was some vague hint of
happiness in her mind, till she was wakened in the morning by a most
violent bell ringing. The dressing-bell at Shamrock House, which went at
seven o'clock, was carried by a maid up and down every passage, so that
there was not the slightest chance of anyone oversleeping themselves.
Joan dressed quickly; the faint aroma of happiness which her sleep had
brought her, and which amounted to cheerfulness, stayed with her. She
remembered how Miss Abercrombie had once said to her: "Oh, you are a
Browningite," and smiled at the phrase, repeating to herself another
verse of the same poem:
"And I shall thereupon
Take rest ere I be gone,
Once more on my adventure brave and new."
She felt almost confident of success this morning; her mind was busy
with plans of the work she would find. She was glad to feel herself one
in a giant hive of workers, all girls like herself, cutting out their
lives for themselves, earning their own living.
Breakfast brought with it a slight disillusionment. The dining-room in
Shamrock House is in the basement; chill and dreary of aspect, its
windows always dirty and unopenable, because at the slightest excuse of
an open window the small boys of the neighbourhood will make it their
target for all kinds of filth. Rotting vegetables, apple-cores,
scrapings of mud; there is quite sufficient of all that outside the
windows without encouraging it to come in. Six long deal tables occupy
the space of the room, and it is one of the few amusements which the
children of Digby Street possess to gather at the railings and watch the
inhabitants of Shamrock House being fed.
It was the last flight of stairs into the basement which damped Joan's
enthusiasm for her new home. As she stood hesitating in the doorway, for
there were a great many people in the room, and the tables seemed
crowded, she caught Miss Nigel's eye.
"You will find a seat over there," the lady called out to her, waving a
hand in the direction of the furthest table. "Help yourself to bacon,
which is on the hot case near the fire, and come here for your tea or
coffee. By the way, which do you like?"
Joan asked for tea, and having secured her cup and a small piece of
unappetizing bacon, she found her way over to the indicated table. A
girl sat at the head of it, and since she was ensconced behind a
newspaper and apparently paying no attention to anybody, Joan chose the
chair next her. She felt on the sudden shy and unwilling to make friends
with anyone, the chill of the room was striking into her heart.
She had presently to rouse her neighbour, however, to ask her to pass
the salt, and at that the girl lifted a pair of penetrating eyes and
fixed Joan with an intent stare.
"New arrival?" she asked.
"Yes," Joan admitted. "I came last night."
"Humph!" the girl commented. "Well, don't touch the jam this morning. It
is peculiar to Shamrock House--plum-stones, raspberry-pips and glue."
She swept the information at Joan and returned to her paper.
She was a big girl with rather a heavy face and strong, capable-looking
hands. Despite her manners, which were undeniably bad, Joan would almost
have described her as distinguished but for the fact that the word
sounded ridiculous amid such surroundings.
"Looking for work?" the girl asked presently.
"Yes," Joan answered again, "only I am not sure what sort of work to
look for, or what I should like to do."
The girl lifted her eyes to stare at her once again. "It isn't generally
a case of 'like,'" she said, "more often it is necessity. In that
case"--she reached out a long arm for the bread--"Fate does not as a
rule give you much time in which to make up your mind; she pushes you
into something which you hate like hell for the rest of your life."
"You aren't very cheerful," remonstrated Joan.
"Oh, well, I never am that," agreed the other, "nor polite. You ask Miss
Nigel if you want a true estimate of my manners. But I have lived here
ten years now and I have seen girls like you drift in and out by the
score. The feeding or the general atmosphere doesn't agree with them,
and our ranks are maintained by beings of a coarser make, as you may see
for yourself."
She rose, crumpling her paper into a ball and throwing it under the
table.
"My name is Rose Brent," she said. "What is yours?"
"Rutherford," Joan answered, "Joan Rutherford. I hope I shan't drift
quite as quickly as you foretell," she added.
Secretarial work was what she had really made up her mind to try for,
though she had not had the courage to confess as much to her breakfast
companion. She had, after all, had a certain amount of training in that
and hoped not to find it so very impossible to get a post as a beginner
somewhere. Her first visit to the nearest registry office, however,
served to show her that her very slight experience was going to be of
little use to her. The registry lady was kind, sufficiently interested
to appear amiable, but not at all reassuring in her views as to Joan's
prospects.
"I am afraid I cannot hold out very much hope," she said, after five
minutes' crisp questioning of Joan. "You have, you see, so very few
qualifications, and the market is rather over-stocked with girls who can
do just a little. My strong advice to you is to continue your shorthand;
when you are a little more experienced in that we ought to have no
difficulty in placing you. Good morning; please see that the hall door
shuts properly, the latch is very weak."
Her business-like manner, the absolute efficiency which shone around
her, and the crowded aspect of the waiting-room--all girls who could do
just a little, Joan presumed--caused her heart to sink. Finding work was
not going to be as easy as she had first supposed.
She roamed from office to office after that for several days, to be met
everywhere with the same slight encouragement and frail promises to
help. Finally, thoroughly discouraged, she bought papers instead, and
turned to a strict perusal of their various advertisements.
One in particular caught her eye.
"Wanted a pupil shorthand typist. Tuition in return for services.--Apply
Miss Bacon, 2, Baker Street, W."
It was late in the afternoon of the day before Joan found her way to
Baker Street, for she had had several other places to call at and she
was in addition very tired. Going from place to place in search of work
had reduced her to a painful knowledge of her own absolute incompetency
and the general uselessness of life. A brass plate on the door of No. 2
conveyed the information: "Miss Bacon. Fourth floor. Shorthand and
Typing. Please ring and walk up."
Joan rang and followed the instructions. On the very top landing a girl
stood, holding a candle in her hand, for up here there was no light of
any sort. The grease dripped down her skirt and on to the floor.
"Do you want Miss Bacon?" she asked.
Joan nodded, too breathless to say anything.
The girl turned into the dim interior and threw open a door, snuffing
the candle at the same time.
"If you will wait here," she said, "Miss Bacon will be with you in a
minute."
Joan looked round on a moderately large, dust-smothered room. Dust, that
is to say, was the first thing to strike the eye of the beholder. The
windows were thick in dust, it lay on tables and chairs and on the two
typewriters standing unused in a corner of the room. The room gave one
the impression of being singularly uninhabited. Then the door opened and
shut again, and Joan turned to face the owner.
Miss Bacon's figure, like her furniture, seemed to have taken on a
coating of dust. Timid eyes looked out at Joan from behind pince-nez set
rather crookedly on a thin nose. One side of her face, from eye to chin,
was disfigured by an unsightly bruise. Miss Bacon dabbed a handkerchief
to it continually and started explaining its presence at once.
"You may be surprised at my face"--her voice, like her eyes, was
timid--"but I am short-sighted and last night stumbled on the stairs,
hitting my face against the top step. It was exceedingly painful, but it
is better now. What can I do for you?"
Joan murmured something sympathetic about the top step, and explained
that she had come in answer to the advertisement. Miss Bacon's face
fell. "I had hoped you were a client," she owned. Then she pulled
forward a chair for herself and asked Joan to be seated.
It appeared that Joan would receive excellent tuition in shorthand and
free use of the typewriters. If any typing work came in she would be
expected to help with it, but for the rest she could devote the whole
of her time to studying and practising on the machines. Miss Bacon was a
little vague as to the other pupils, but Joan gathered that there was a
shorthand class and two other typewriters in another room.
"My other pupils are, of course, on a different footing," Miss Bacon
told her. "Generally I require a fee of at least ten guineas, but in
your case, as I shall require you to do a little work for me, I shall be
content to take less. That is to say, four guineas, everything
included."
"There is nothing about paying in the advertisement," Joan ventured. "I
am afraid it is quite impossible for me to pay that."
Miss Bacon took off her glasses and polished them with nervous hands. "I
do not want to seem unreasonable," she said; "after you have worked for
me you will certainly be able to obtain a well-paid post elsewhere; my
pupils invariably move on in that way. I guarantee, of course, to find
situations. If I could meet you in any way--supposing you paid me two
guineas now and two guineas when you moved on?"
"It is awfully kind of you"--Joan hesitated on the words--"but I am
afraid I can't really afford it, not even that."
Miss Bacon relinquished the idea with a heartfelt sigh. "My dear," she
confided suddenly, "I know what poverty is. Shall we say one pound to
begin with?--you must remember that these are very exceptional terms."
Joan thought a moment. It seemed almost certain, from what she had
gleaned from the various agencies, that getting a post without training
was an impossibility, and most of the training centres asked for at
least twenty-five guineas. Perhaps in refusing this offer she was
letting a good chance slip by her, and, though she hated to make free
use of it, there was always Uncle John's money, to fall back on.
"I think I will come if you will let me do it in that way," she decided
finally; "when would you like me to start?--to-morrow?"
"The sooner the better." Miss Bacon rose with a smile of almost intense
relief. "I have had no one for the last fortnight and the place is
getting very untidy. You will pay the first pound in advance," she
added; "I hope you will bring it with you to-morrow."
She seemed painfully anxious for the money; if Joan had not been so
tired she might have thought the fact suspicious. As it was she went
back to Shamrock House with a lightened heart. It was not a very
attractive or promising post; if she were to judge by outside
appearances and by Miss Bacon's last remark her chief duties were to
include those of general cleaning up and dusting. But that would be all
in the day's work. Some little confidence and hope were beginning to
creep back into her heart. She had secured her first post; Miss Bacon
held out vague visions of the triumphs to which it might lead. Surely in
time she would get away from the nightmare of the last two months; in
time even Aunt Janet would forgive her, and meanwhile her foot was on
the lowest rung of the ladder; work should be her world in future. She
would work and fight and win. There was still, as Miss Abercrombie would
have said, a banner to be carried. She would carry it now to the end.